Stim vs. Non-Stim Pre-Workouts
Pre-workouts have evolved a lot over the years. The first iterations had the whole kitchen sink; for example, Ultimate Orange by Dan Duchaine was rumored to contain anabolic steroids, breast cancer medications, and dangerous thermogenics. Today’s pre-workouts are much less diverse than their predecessors, and can mostly be divided into pump products, stim products, and a blend of the two.[1]
Pump products typically only contain pump-inducing products, which seems obvious, but stim products actually contain pump ingredients in addition to the stimulants. Pump ingredients come in four flavors - antioxidants (e.g. cocoa extract, vitamin c, pine bark, ect), ACE inhibitors (this is exclusively a patented ingredient called VasoDriveAP), arginine-based compounds (e.g. nitrosigine, l-citrulline, agmatine sulfate, ect), and nitrates (e.g. sodium nitrate).
A good pump product should typically contain three of the four categories above to take advantage of a variety of supplementary nitric oxide increasing pathways.
Stim products typically skimp a little on the pump products and instead add caffeine and sometimes many more exotic stimulants (e.g. synephrine, yohimbine, theobromine, ect) and nootropics (e.g. alpha gpc, huperzine a, ect; nootropics are not necessarily technically classified as stimulants but may be stimulatory in practice).
So which is best? Probably both! When you are training close to bed, use the pump product. When you are not close to bed and need a pick me up, use the stim product. If you’ve used the stim product the last few times you’ve trained, throw in the pump product.
And if you’re looking for an all-in-one pre-workout, use Peaked by Delta Bioceuticals. Peaked only has one stimulant, caffeine, but has a combination of nootropics and stimulatory amino acids in addition to all the pump ingredients you could ever want.
You may want to skip it if training right before bed, but it doesn’t need to be cycled and is the only board certified doctor approved pre-workout. It's the best of both worlds, providing sustainable energy and massive pumps!
[1] Unfortunately, prison sentences still seem incumbent on many supplement sellers - from Duchaine to the present.
